Ivory Joe

By Martyn Burke

Originally published by Bantam Books and hailed by critics, this love story, set in 1950s New York, Havana, and the deep south, begins with a divorce. In the eyes of Christie, their young daughter, Leo, and Tina Klein, mismatched and volatile, belong together.

Leo, a charming rogue and a player in New York’s garment industry, skates too close to the mob. Tina, a leftist activist who regularly pickets on behalf of the disadvantaged, has appointed herself manager of Joseph (“Ivory Joe”) Coulter, an ex boxer and a heart-busting black musician at a turning point in popular music history.

Meg Wolitzer wrote in the New York Times: “Mr. Burke weaves a deft plot involving the attempted theft of one of Ivory Joe’s songs, ‘Ghost Lover,’ and the ensuing escapades are frantic and convincing....Martyn Burke knows his territory and he keeps a jazzed up pace appropriate to the story and the era. ...A real pleasure.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bev Editions
• Release date: Jan 25, 2011
• ISBN: 9780986728754

Martyn Burke

Martyn Burke, novelist and award-winning director/writer of both documentaries and dramatic films, has travelled extensively from the Arctic Circle to the Amazon jungles, finding himself in the middle of wars and revolutions in Vietnam and Afghanistan. He has made undercover documentaries on the Mafia and KGB. He is the author of six books: The Commissar's Report, Laughing War, Ivory Joe, The Truth About the Night, Tiara, and The Shelling of Beverly Hills. A native of Canada, he divides his time between Toronto and Santa Monica.

Book preview

IVORY JOE

A Novel by Martyn Burke

First published by Bantam in the US and Seal in Canada, 1991.

Published by Bev Editions at Smashwords

ISBN: 978-0-9867287-5-4

Copyright 2010 Martyn Burke

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

TO FREDA AND LES

and their love letters that are still glowing. After all these years.

Your name is like a golden bell hung in my heart; and when I think of you

I tremble and the bell swings and rings—

-CYRANO DE BERGERAC

by Edmond Rostand

Contents

Ponies

Fighters

Frolick Frocks

Lovers

Ivory Joe and the Classics

Racketeers

The War

Singers

Yoyos

Miami

Ivory Joe

The South

The Shrink

Leo, Jules and George in Havana

Ghost Lover

Personal Reasons

Just a Matter of Time

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Review Excerpts

PONIES

1

New York—1954

Leo is pounding on the door telling us to let him in. So far he's been nice about it. But now he's starting to remind us that he's our father. We all know that. We know that's trouble because most of the time Leo can hardly remember he's got two daughters. Leo should have had boys. We all know that. Some runty little Leo junior he could take to the fights at Madison Square Garden. Someone to turn his companies over to when he gets old. But that's not our fault. Ruthie is stalling for time. She's cooler than I am. She always is. How do we know it's really you, Daddy? How do we know you're not just some man that sounds like you? she says staring right into the door. Ruthie is older than me. Thirteen. If it's really you, tell us what our names are.

Why can't I think of a good question like that? Half the time when he's cruising around town being Mr. Broadway in his Cadillac with his girlfriends Leo can't even remember our names. I've seen it happen. His eyes get sort of all jittery when he has to introduce us to one of them—his doxies as Mother calls them. He tries to cover up not remembering our names and he makes it all a big joke. He calls us Rapunzel and Rebecca. Or Betty and Boopsy. And some of his doxies are so dumb they don't know he's blown it and is still trying to figure out what he named his own kids. Well hello Rapunzel, they'll say looking at us all gushy and sappy. Like this is the way our new mother should act. But we know they'll just be around until Leo gets tired of them. A month makes them veterans.

Christie, Ruthie, open the door. Now we are in trouble. We've got to open the door. Even though Mother has told us a zillion times never to let Leo in the apartment when she's not there. It's all part of the war between them. But Ruthie and I know what the real problem is. They just love each other too much. It's that simple. But do you think either of them can see it? Fat chance. I unlock the door and open it. Leo stands there in his silk suit grinning at us. We know he's the handsomest father in the whole world. The light in the hallway shines down, catching the sharp edges of his face. Most of those edges got there from the times he was beaten up. But if they were trying to make him ugly it didn't work. The more they broke up Leo's face the better he looked. The only problem is that when he doesn't smile he looks like the Aztec mask over in the museum beside Central Park.

Where's Mother? asks Ruthie.

She's fine. I'm going to be looking after you tonight.

This has never happened before. Not like this. And when Stanley comes huffing out of the elevator, we know something is definitely weird. Stanley is Leo's driver. Almost his friend. Leo always sits in the front seat beside Stanley. Right now Stanley has his tongue sticking between his lips. He is carrying a big silver tray with white napkins covering some lumpy stuff underneath.

I had Stanley go out and get us all some dinner.

We've got to be the only kids in all New York and probably the world to have food sent in from the Copacabana. But Leo can be sneaky sometimes. Not answering you directly and hoping you'll forget. When's Mother coming back? I ask.

Tomorrow morning. Leo musses up my hair. I like it when he does that.

Where is she?

In jail, Leo says with a big smile.

Not again, says Ruthie.

2

Even before we finish our Copacabana dinner we can tell something big is going to happen. It's going to be another one of Leo's doozies.

He's telling us that we have to go to bed at the regular time and not pay attention to the noise. What noise? we ask him. Oh, just a few friends dropping in, Leo says as Stanley is putting away Mother's vases and calling Steinberg's Deli ordering take-out for sixty people. Leo is being extra nice, which also means trouble. Whenever he knows he's going to have a fight with Mother he turns on the charm. He wants us to take his side. That's one of the ways they fight with each other.

Leo carefully explains that he was supposed to throw a party tonight for his best friend Arnie Dalitz. But because he's looking after us he can't have the party at his place. That makes sense doesn't it? Ruthie and I nod and look at each other. Mother's place where we live is a lot nicer than Leo's apartment. But that's only because Leo hasn't unpacked most of his furniture even though he's been there two years. Home-type details don't mean much to Leo. Even when he was living here all he ever did was leave little bundles of money around to look after whatever had to be done. Our apartment is really big. One side looks out on West End Avenue and all the bedrooms are down a long hallway. Mine looks down on 8ist Street and if you press your face against the window you can see the boats going up the Hudson River.

Arnie Dalitz has been Leo's best friend since they were my age. They both lived in the Bronx and were poor. Now Leo owns a big company and Arnie just got out of Sing Sing penitentiary yesterday. Arnie has been locked there for three years. He's in the rackets. But Leo will never tell us what the rackets are. Just a bunch of guys having fun he says. A lot of Leo's friends are in the rackets. Mother always kept warning Leo his friends would get him thrown in jail someday. When I remind Leo of this he says but look who's in jail tonight. Your mother.

Leo has an answer for everything.

Mother's in jail because she was picketing Leo's company again. This used to happen even when they lived here together. Every time the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union went on strike against Frolic Frocks, Inc., Mother was there with all the little Italian and Polish ladies who worked in the factory. She'd take food down to the picket lines. And sometimes Leo would come home to find half his factory eating dinner in the dining room. Once he walked in while they were voting on his offer. But Mother picketed lots of places. Once she took me with her on a freezing cold day. We went to a big warehouse building on 28th Street where steam roared from the windows high up. It was like smoke from a dragon's nose. The steam came from the pressing machines inside the factory where a lot of foreign ladies were sewing clothes. It was so cold inside you could see their breath. They were all bundled up in ragged coats and gloves with the fingers cut out so they could sew. A lot of them were coughing. The owner came roaring in. A big fat man. The kind whose arms stick out at his side like flippers. He started yelling at Mother, telling her she'd be arrested for trespassing. Mother never took that kind of guff from anyone. She started chasing the man around his own factory. Yelling at him to turn on the heat. Three weeks later Leo brought the fat man home to drink some whiskey after they'd been out gambling. When he saw Mother the fat man went white like a fish. But Mother just smiled sweetly.

Mother is like that. If she sees a milkman beating the horse that pulls his cart, she'll go over and start hitting the milkman. It's nothing personal. Even Leo knows that. But Leo has made sure we know what the problem is. The problem is that Mother started leading pickets around Morgen's restaurant. Morgen's is the place at the bottom of the garment building on Seventh Avenue. Leo and all the other big garment guys in the building eat lunch there. They eat their steaks and then suck things out of their teeth and tell each other how bad business is. Leo says it was a mistake for Mother to do what she did. To teach the picketers to stand outside and yell insults about the waistlines of the big garment guys. Enough is enough, Leo says. Your mother is breaking the law. But Mother says Leo and his friends played poker with some policemen one night. They let the policemen win a lot of money and drink a lot of whiskey. The next day Mother was in jail for trespassing.

It's midnight. Ruthie and I can look down the long hallway and see them playing poker and dancing with the models. The whole living room is packed and the smoke looks like a fog rolling down the hallway. Leo must be winning because we can see him laughing a lot. And Arnie Dalitz is there in his new shiny suit, drinking whiskey and putting his arm around all the girls. Like a lot of the men there he calls them all sweetheart. They say the word out of the side of heir mouth. The whole place is filled with sweethearts. But I've never heard Leo say that.

The ponies finally show up. They're always the most fun. The ponies are the short dancers at the Copacabana. The tall ones they just call showgirls. It's real interesting to watch Leo around the ponies. A couple of them know his weak spots. One little blonde goes over and musses up his hair while he's playing cards. And rubs the back of his neck. Leo pretends he's too busy playing poker but when she goes to get him a drink you can see him watch her over the top of his glasses. The pony is probably thinking of what kind of wedding dress to wear. And checking the living room to see if it would hold all her bridesmaid ponies. Fat chance. That doxie. Sometimes Leo can be so dumb. For your information Ruthie and I are both ponies.

There's some kind of noise coming from the hall around the comer. It sounds like one of the radiators has burst again except the heat's not on. Ruthie and I creep around the corner in our nightgowns. It's coming from Mother's bedroom. But the door is closed. So we run to the spare bedroom right next to Mother's. There's a bathroom with doors on both sides and even as we're tiptoeing through it we can hear Arnie Dalitz. And one of the ponies! In our mother's bedroom! Oh baby, it's been three years, he says. And you can hear her giggle and say he hasn't forgotten anything.

Forgotten what? Ruthie tells me to shut up as she puts her face up against the door and opens it a tiny sliver. She spins around and even in the darkness I can see her mouth is wide open and her eyes are like pinwheels. He's got a boner, she gasps. A what? I ask. Stupid, she hisses. Don't you know anything? That's what Margie Lewicki says her brother calls it. Ruthie dives back to the door and I crawl under her to watch too.

I can't believe it!

There's Arnie Dalitz, all hairy like Mrs. Knightley's dog, rolling all over Mother's bed with nothing on. And the pony! He's tearing off her clothes. I can't tell for sure if she likes it but I think she does. It's a good thing Mother's in jail.

Then Ruthie starts making funny noises. Something's wrong. She's trying to whisper something but she just makes these noises and points to her mouth. She's stuck to the bathroom door. Her braces are caught in the string bag Leo stapled to the door to hold his magazines when he lived here. How am I supposed to know what to do? I'm starting to panic. Ruthie is making gurgling sounds and I can see Arnie Dalitz's white bum going up and down like he's doing some kind of exercise on top of that pony in Mother's bed. He's hurting her. I can tell because she's moaning and he's not even stopping. All I can think of is Mother and the milkman's horse. So I grab a towel and push open the door. Ruthie lets out a howl. Arnie Dalitz is howling too and so is the pony. I start hitting Arnie Dalitz with the towel, yelling at the pony to get away while she can. Ruthie is rolling all over the floor holding her mouth.

Lights go on all over the place and people start running through the whole apartment. Arnie Dalitz is hopping around like a stork trying to put his pants on. Leo comes racing in with a whole bunch of his friends who are holding their cards. Everybody's yelling at once.

And then everybody stops yelling. The phone is ringing. Leo tells everyone to be quiet. He looks at the phone like it's a bomb. It rings a lot and then it stops. Leo looks relieved. Then it starts ringing again. Leo shouts at Stanley to answer it. The whole apartment is very quiet. You can hear Stanley talking on the telephone but you can't hear what he's saying. Leo is shooing everyone out of the bedroom and making shushing moves with his fingers. Then Stanley yells in a real phony voice.

Leo, are you awake? It's Tina.

Leo's eyes go a little wider and he hurries back to the living room. Suddenly Ruthie and I are left alone in the bedroom with the pony, who looks like she's been running in a rainstorm. She just sits there on the bed breathing hard through her nose with her little red lips clamping tighter together. Staring at me. Just staring. Can you believe it? Not even a thank you.

You're very welcome I say, marching out into the hallway. In the living room everyone is very still like a painting. Only Leo moves. He paces back and forth staring at the floor as he talks to Mother. All the poker players are pretending to watch him when I can see they're really trying to look at each other's cards. Tina, I'm really glad you're okay, he says. I was worried about you. . . . Of course I do. . . . I didn't mean what I said about you either. . . . You know, out there on the street. The part about being a communist. Look, I know. I know. You're just doing what you feel you have to.

This is really something. Leo hasn't talked like this to Mother since before he moved out. I knew they'd get back together again!

I rush into the bedroom to tell Ruthie but she's standing over the extension phone like a cat over a bug. Ruthie! I whisper as loud as I can. You can't listen to them. That's personal!

It's our lives too, you know. Besides, nothing Leo ever does is personal, says Ruthie, staring daggers at me. She lifts up the phone real real carefully. I figure what the heck, if she's listening it's not going to make any difference if I do too. So I go and horn in just in time to hear Mother ask if the girls are okay.

Sound asleep. Just tucked them in. You know I was looking down at them while they were sleeping and thinking Tina and I sure made a couple of great kids. Honestly, Leo.

Leo, it makes me feel good to hear you say that. You know there's no need for you to sleep on the couch. Why don't you use my bed?

"Aw, Tina, thanks. But you know. There's too many memories.

And I . . ."I think I'm going to barf. Can you believe it? Like he's searching for words. While Arnie Dalitz's pony is spread all over the bed. Along with Leo's memories. How are the Tombs? Leo says.

Like usual. Dirty. Stinking. A lot of prostitutes. And about twenty of us. Mother's voice is a little shaky.

Well, at least you'll be out in the morning.

Leo, I've been thinking about a lot of things.

So have I.

Leo, can you talk? I mean is Stanley around?

He's in the next room. I just had him drop over with some milk for the girls. Hah! Booze for the doxies you mean.

Maybe we could talk things over. I mean, things between us.

Oh God, Tina. I would really like that. Ruthie and I look at each other. He means it.

Leo, I think I'm going to post bail. I can be home in an hour.

Honey, that would be great. Great? Are you nuts, Leo? It would take us all night just to scrape up the stuff that's been spilled. Listen Tina, why don't I come down there and ...

What, Leo?

I just thought of something.

What?

Nothing.

Tell me.

I ... I was wondering if it's right to get out of jail when your fellow strikers would still have to stay behind till morning. No! Tina, Tina, forget I said that—

Leo, wait. Maybe you're right. I can't leave them, can I? LeoLeoLeo. You sneaky cad you lousy rat you weasel you. But what did I tell you? Leo has an answer for everything. The party keeps going like someone has pulled a switch. The racketeers and the big garment guys and the ponies are having a great time. And Leo keeps winning. But something weird is happening! The whole room is spinning around. Ruthie and I are grabbing on to the walls that keep turning in circles. We can't even put our mouths around the straw to drink the chocolate milk that Stanley gave us. It's not exactly chocolate milk. It's chocolate and something else. Stanley keeps saying would we like to go to bed and I see Leo waving night-night. Actually I see two Leos.

When the phone rings it sounds like the fire bell at school going off in my head. The whole living room freezes again and then Leo motions for Stanley to answer the phone. Hello, says Stanley and then he looks real funny before he says, She's not here. Any message? Then he stares at the phone and hangs up.

Who's that? asks Leo like someone has stolen one of his aces.

Stanley still looks kind of funny. Some guy, he says. It sounded like a Negro. He says it knee-grow like he's chewing over the word. Negro? For Tina? A couple of big garment guys check their watches and look at each other, raising their eyebrows. Three jacks, Leo says quickly. Everyone acts real weird.

Boy are they dumb. Ruthie and I know who it is. It's Ivory Joe. But the walls are doing cartwheels.

I've got to go to bed.

3

What a headache.

Ruthie and I are both feeling around for aspirins. We have a lot to do this morning. We're going to get Leo and Mother back together again. It's definite. At least that's what we tell ourselves until we go out into the living room. It looks like Camp Wig-A-Mog on laundry day. Boys' laundry day. A disaster. There's food everywhere. And those crummy-smelling cigars piled up like dog doo in the ashtrays.

I hate the things. And Leo's playing cards, the ones with naked women on the back, are all over the floor. I catch Ruthie holding one of the cards and looking at herself sideways in the mirror. No contest. Ruthie loses. She gets real upset whenever I even tease her about that stuff so I shut up. We find a nylon stocking. Which starts me thinking that maybe we'd better do a check like they do at Camp Wig-A-Mog. To see if any campers got left behind. Good thing we do. I find Mr. Kampelman wedged between the wall and the back of the couch. Smelling of booze. And with lipstick all over his white shirt. He's easy. Just a shot of Grandma's smelling salts. The tough one is the pony in the bathtub. The same one who never thanked me for helping save her from Arnie Dalitz. She's a goner. Lying there snoring with a pillow under her head. Her sweater is pulled up almost to her shoulders. It's a good thing Ruthie's cleaning up the living room. Otherwise she'd really get weird when she at the pony's chest and then looked at herself in the mirror.

When I announce it's time to leave, the pony looks at me with one eye and then goes back to sleep. I say it again. Take it from me. I'm polite. But you should see what she does. She opens that same eye and tells me to do the most unbelievable thing to myself.

Not even garbage mouth Louis Makin at school would say that.

Even when he had a crush on me and was trying to impress me. I tell her I'm not going to take any guff from her. But she's already asleep again. So I just let her have it with the shower. Full blast. Cold only, and in our apartment cold is cold, believe me. All of a sudden she's like a seal at the zoo. Sliding all over. Feet in the air like flippers and making gagging noises like when you put your fingers down your throat. Boy does she ever get a soaker.

The pony I can handle okay. The real tough one is Leo. He's up at least. He's always up. Leo only sleeps four hours a night. He used to drive us nuts when he lived here, roaming around in the middle of the night, coming into our room and asking Can't you sleep? when we were sound asleep. Without anyone to talk to Leo can sometimes get real goofy.

But right now Leo is convinced he's dying. Every morning of his life especially after he got old and turned forty Leo is convinced he's dying. Which he probably is. You would too if you had half the booze the girlfriends the cigarettes the nightclubs the parties and the gambling that Leo has. And that's on top of being one of New York's smartest businessmen. Leo is sitting up in bed looking the color of the sheets. I don't feel so hot, he says. I think it's serious this time, Christie.

This time? I mean honestly.

Have you seen my black bag? Leo asks in a voice that sounds like he's ninety. Leo's black bag goes wherever he goes. It's the kind the doctors carry, but he doesn't put the same kind of stuff inside. It's crammed with pills. There are dozens of bottles of them in all different colors and sizes. Everything from aspirins to vitamins and a whole bunch of other things. I get Leo's black bag and he starts pouring out the fistful of pills muttering when he can't find the Royal Queen Bee Jelly pills. So he settles for the blue pills in the little bottle marked up.

Ruthie and I clean like crazy, vacuuming the carpets opening all the windows and getting the guck off the dining room table. There's no way Mother's going to walk in here and find out what was going on last night. Not when there's a chance that she and Leo can get back together. Even Leo gets into the act. He starts drying all the dishes, which is real unusual for him. A good sign we figure. And he also changes his doctor's appointment. Every morning he gets an injection of vitamin B. To fire up the engine he says. But today Stanley is sent to bring Dr. Taffler over here in case Mother arrives early. Dr. Taffler handles a lot of the gamblers who are friends of Leo's. I wouldn't let him even look at my tonsils because he's real creepy like he should be running a funeral parlor. He's kind of bulgy with hair stuck over his big bald spot. The only time he smiles is when Leo pulls some money out of his pocket and slaps it into his hand. Leo doesn't even count the money.

Then we wait for Mother. Leo is fine now. Which means he's like a Coke bottle when you shake it too much with your finger over the top of it. He walks back and forth looks at his watch makes a phone call and then does the same thing all over again. Ruthie and I are proud of the job we've done. The apartment looks perfect.

Now it's up to them. About 9:30 we get a phone call from Mother's lawyer. This afternoon he says. They're late with the bail hearings. That means we have to go to school which means we need a note from a parent saying why we're late. We explain this to Leo who looks like he can't figure it out. He's on the phone asking about dress sales to Macy's and the horses at Aqueduct. With the phone to his ear he gets a note pad and some carbon paper which he puts between the first two pages. He scribbles something stops, scribbles again mutters into the phone and shakes his head. Finally after we start bugging him he tears off the pieces of paper and gives us one each. I get the carbon copy. It says: My kid is sick today—Leo K. On the bottom is some more writing. It says: Misty Maiden—3rd—$500/Southern Dancer—6th—a thou.

At school Mr. Alwyn just stares at the note when I hand it to him. Then he looks at me. Then at the note again. That's all. But his Adam's apple bobs up and down over his bow tie a few times. I go to the School for Ethical Studies right on Central Park West. There's a bunch of rich kids there. Their parents all want to have kids who are brains. My best friend Susie Leggat is a brain but her parents aren't loaded. She got there on a scholarship because the school needs real brains otherwise the rich kids won't be sent there. Susie's not even Jewish. But a bunch of kids aren't. And me I'm half.

So who can think today? About the stamen and the pistil and what Abe Lincoln said at Gettysburg and what 12 times 15 divided by 3 equals. When your mother's getting out of jail again.

I pray for lunch period. Instead of hanging around I walk up Central Park West to the museum where I sit eating my sandwich looking at the dinosaur skeletons. The museum is where I go when things get real nutty. It's nice and quiet in there. Most of the time in the museum I make up stories about whatever it is I'm looking at. This is where Leo is great too. He started coming here to the museum with me sometimes. At first he didn't want to. He thought it was too much like school which he got kicked out of. But I got him learning about this stuff. The way to do it is make a bet with him. When I bet him who could remember the most kinds of stuffed monkeys in the glass cages the game was on. He cleaned me. He has what he says is a photographic memory. He got twenty-nine out of thirty- two. I only got nine. So I had to pay him a nickel. Leo loved it because he had a daughter he could make bets with. Almost as good as a son. I keep Leo going on our nickel bets. Sometimes it goes to a dime. Already he's learned all the Indian tribes in the Southwest the birds of Asia and the names of all the major stars in the sky at night. He's great fun to learn with. He loves it. But what he loves most is when I have to cough up my nickel. Of course later he gives me a dollar for an ice cream cone that costs a dime.

And last month I decided to risk the whole dollar on the different kinds of totem poles. I caught Leo with three library books on totem poles. And I heard him on the phone bragging to Uncle Morris that he was teaching me! The joys of betting. Is Leo ever out of it sometimes.

After lunch our class gets to go over to Central Park and play a lot of girl-type games while the boys play softball. Mostly we just watch the boys in our class who are playing Mrs. Levine's class. Both Sara Kramer and I have a big crush on Tubby Wilson. He may sound fat but he's not. He used to be. He's pitching and is going to win up till the Manny Singh fight. Manny's real name is Amand or something. But in this school naturally he gets called Manny. His father's a big wheel from India at their embassy here. Manny wears a turban and can hit home runs. This time he belts one of Tubby's pitches. It should have been a homer for sure. But when he was racing around second base that dirty Louie Makin grabbed part of his turban. It started coming undone with Louie hanging onto it like a water-skier.

Manny was almost at shortstop when he realized what was happening. He went berserk. He ran back trying to pound Louie Makin, yelling and holding onto his turban like crazy. But the worst part was that the ball was thrown back to Louie Makin while Manny was on the ground wrapping his turban. So Manny got called out. You should have heard all the yelling. And then while Louie Makin was laughing at him Manny kicked him right between the legs. Louie Makin bit the dust. All the boys on Manny's team were yelling hey right in the nuts and stuff like that. But Mrs. Levine came and told us to get back to our girl-type games right away. Later we found out that Manny was awarded the home run. And both he and Louie Makin have to take ten extra ethics classes after school. It serves Louie Makin right. He was just trying to impress me and Sara.

Finally school ends. I race down to the corner pay phone and call home. Mother answers. I say hi mom how was jail and she laughs and tells me how much she loves me. I keep fishing around to find out if Leo's there. Without actually asking her. It's obvious he's not.

So I say bye and hang up and call Frolic Frocks. Mrs. Weissman who's been there for a million years answers with that voice of hers that sounds like when you take an old bandage off fast. That rat Leo is still at the office. But Mrs. Weissman gives me some line about him being tied up in a meeting with some buyers. I tell her I'm about to be kidnapped by the Seven Dwarfs who are right outside the phone booth. Sneezy's holding a gun and Grumpy has the ransom note.

She says she'll check to see if he can come to the phone. Leo comes on with his usual hi baby. I say listen you'd better be back home when Ruthie and I get there. Otherwise big trouble because we didn't clean up all that stuff for nothing. And Mother's already waiting.

Leo goes through his ohmygod I forgot about the time routine. Which I recite silently while he says it. I know it as well as the Pledge of Allegiance.

Tonight everything is perfect. Dinner around the table. Leo carving the roast. Him and Mother staring at each other over the candles.

And Ruthie and I kicking each other under the table every time we see them do anything. Leo's on his best behavior. He gave her a kiss when he came in. He told her how pretty she looked. For an ex-con he added and they both laughed. Best of all he brought her a beautiful pair of earrings. You can always tell the presents that Leo buys himself from the ones he sends Stanley out to buy. Mother is real pleased.